Apple’s latest iPad mini (7th generation, the company calls it iPad mini (A17 Pro)) is more than just the latest bit-sized luxury tablet. This is currently the entry point to Apple Intelligence. Yes, the Cupertino-based tech giant is focused on delivering real benefits to those with privacy in mind, with products designed to fit perfectly into the devices and platforms customers already use. We are introducing AI capabilities.
Apple Intelligence is also a long-term bet, and to some extent this is similar to the story of the iPad mini A17 Pro. This variant arrived three years after the previous generation, and dates back to WWDC in June 2024, when Apple first revealed its Apple Intelligence ambitions. Now, almost four months later, we get iPadOS 18.1, which alongside iOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 is also the delivery vehicle for Apple’s latest suite.
Before the iPad mini, you needed to spend at least $799 / £799 / AU$1,399 on an iPhone 16 to get into the Apple Intelligence game, but now it costs just $499 / £499 / AU$799 You can buy it for dollars. To that end, you’re getting an 8.3-inch iPad with a huge speed boost thanks to Apple’s A17 Pro chip and access to all the AI features available out of the box. You can also future-proof it for years to come. It’s easy to see why iPad mini is such a compelling experience.
Our full ruling on Apple’s latest opinion is available at iPad mini (2024) reviewbut here we unpack a conversation between Tom Boger, Apple’s vice president of iPad product marketing, and Kurt Knight, Apple’s senior director of platform product marketing. This conversation covers everything from why now is the time for an iPad mini to the launch of Apple Intelligence, and answers to the most important question in my opinion: how does Math Notes work? It’s being featured.
Boger believes now is the perfect time to launch the iPad mini, thanks to the A17 Pro chip, Apple Pencil Pro, and Apple Intelligence, which he says are “a very compelling upgrade to the mini.” “We create what we think.” What’s more, it’s the perfect combination for the many different places your iPad mini might end up. The iPad mini is more affordable than, say, the Air, but offers a similar user experience, which is why it’s used by a wide range of people. In addition to consumers, Borger mentioned all kinds of people, including students, healthcare workers, architects, and even pilots, who choose iPad mini for its go-anywhere size and variety of features.
As for the chip inside, the A17 Pro isn’t brand new as it was first shown on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Sure, it’s not the latest A18 or M series found in the iPad Air and iPad Pro, respectively, but it feels perfectly at home on the iPad mini. It’s also highly expandable, and when I asked Borger if the iPad mini was a tool for professionals, he summed it up this way: “Products that range from everyday consumers to professional use cases, especially vertical use cases.” He cited pilots who fly with them, gate agents who use them during boarding, and field service technicians.
That’s been the case with the iPad mini for a while. That’s thanks to a sleek aluminum 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, a great combination of weightlessness and near-all-day battery life. The A17 Pro is certainly faster with a 30% faster CPU and 25% faster GPU compared to the 6th generation A15 Bionic, but it also has a new accessory, the Apple Pencil Pro. there is.
This is a pretty quick trickle down for Apple, as the premium Apple Pencil debuted alongside the Apple Pencil in May 2024. iPad Air (equipped with M2) and iPad Pro with M4. If you’re used to the handwriting and drawing experience on the iPad, you’ll feel at home thanks to the low latency and hand detection. You can also hold the pencil to bring up the context menu. It’s very convenient.
However, iPadOS 18 has intelligent features even before Apple Intelligence. This is embedded in the concept that Apple has been working to seed and create these intelligent experiences for consumers for quite some time. iPad offers a dedicated experience. Many of us take notes on our iPads. So why not create software that helps you clean up your handwriting and match it to your own style? That makes sense in a way, and that applies here.
Borger explained this philosophy: “When we introduce a feature into a platform, we integrate it deeply.” He noted that the Apple Pencil does not work in a narrow way or with a few features, but “is integrated into the entire system.” did. He added, “We did this before when Apple intelligence came out, and we integrated it across the system, so when we built that intelligence into the experience, it just naturally worked together.”
For example, Apple Intelligence uses Apple Pencil Pro (or Apple Pencil USB-C) works in conjunction with the new Apple Intelligence feature on iPad mini. One of the headline features is the ability to talk to Siri and type, but if you’re using Apple Pencil on your iPad, you don’t want to mess up your flow.
That’s why Apple came up with Scribble to Siri. It’s similar to being able to scribble in a text field on your iPad with Apple Pencil and have those words translated into typed text. It should now work for Siri requests. Knight explained: “One method is to transcribe the audio and bring it into the other set, and the other method is to transcribe the handwriting and bring it in. So it’s a slightly different task, but in terms of the experience. , the answers users will get will be very similar.”
In Knight’s eyes, “the fundamental difference is that sometimes it’s very natural for people to talk to Siri, but there may be other people around and it’s more convenient to write a letter to Siri.” ” into Siri. ” is about optimizing the platform’s new experience in a way that works best for users.
Knight summarized this new feature very succinctly. “Once you squeeze it, you don’t have to take your hand off to switch to another modality.”
Another new experience that works best with iPad and Apple Pencil is Math Notes. This is the tool everyone wanted back in school. Basically, write out any math problem, from a simple equation to ay=mx+b, and iPad will give you the answer in seconds. You can also create graphs if you wish. You can also handle mathematical formulas written vertically and horizontally.
Knight described his vision for the product as similar to using paper and pencil. “We wanted this new way of doing math that blurred the line between the moment you write what you want to solve and the solution itself afterwards.” Sounds simple, but on Leveraging device learning, custom models, and enough horsepower is a challenge.
“This feature leverages our advances in handwriting recognition and our efforts to understand the different layouts and structures of written mathematics,” Knight explained. Apple’s team needed to understand the complexity of a particular problem and all the different ways to describe it structurally. The result is an expanded learning model and possible layouts for handwriting recognition, combined with the mathematical calculation backbone that iPad already had.
“The math wasn’t a new part; it was important to understand what was written and be able to translate it back and forth,” Knight added. math notes and Smart Script shipped with iPadOS 18 in September 2024.
But now, with the launch of Apple Intelligence only days away, as with the iPad mini, Apple is playing some of the long game here. Still, it’s clear that the foundation has been laid in Apple’s own way. The iPad mini is also poised to be the entry point for many who want to experience the company’s new suite of tools.
Both Boger and Knight are excited about the launch of Apple Intelligence. Knight acknowledges that it’s still early days, but says, “Apple Intelligence will transform what we can do for years to come.”
Continuing the theme that Apple is rarely the first to market with new technology, preferring to wait until its own proprietary technology meets the company’s rigorous standards, Knight said Apple Intelligence will be available on devices starting in October. We believe that the rollout schedule is appropriate. , was announced in June. “I think we have a great strategy for how we want to accomplish these things,” he says. “And what you’re seeing now is consistent with what we talked about at the Worldwide Developers Conference as we charted our path forward. That’s why we were so excited.”
He continued: “We’ve thought deeply about how to deliver these advances to our users in the right way, to help them do what they do every day, and to improve what they do every day with iPad. and how to integrate it into the operating system.” Of course, at the heart of it all is privacy. Apple handles some of this on-device. This is where the enhanced Neural Engine comes in handy on iPad mini. Apple also uses private cloud computing servers to process Apple Intelligence tasks in the cloud, protecting your privacy with the same kinds of protections you have on your devices.
In addition to Scribble to Siri, iPadOS 18.1 also lets you summarize notifications and create custom memory lookbooks with photos. However, one of the best experiences on the iPad is cleaning up. This is Apple’s solution for removing unexpected photobombs and background distractions from your images. In Photos, use Apple Pencil to highlight or circle areas in a way that’s much more precise than using just your finger or your computer mouse/trackpad. Now you can. Looking ahead, iPadOS 18.2 brings Genmoji, Image Playground, and Image Wand – The latter must be specific to the iPad experience.
Knight believes the features here are “going to be really beautiful in a way that simplifies and accelerates things that we do every day.” As both he and Borger told me, this is thanks to the contribution, design, and construction of Apple’s entire vertical stack: both hardware and software.
It’s a consistency of design and delivery that other brands can only envy, and Apple Intelligence on the iPad mini 7 may be the most impressive example yet.
